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Islamic Fundamentalism in the Middle East and Southwest Asia

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Islamic Fundamentalism in the Middle East and Southwest Asia UNHCR Centre for Documentation and Research WRITENET Paper No. 10/2000 ISLAMIC FUNDAMENTALISM IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND SOUTHWEST ASIA By John L. Esposito Professor of Religion and International Affairs, and Professor of Islamic Studies, Founding Director of the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding: History and International Affairs, Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University January 2001 WriteNet is a Network of Researchers and Writers on Human Rights, Forced Migration, Ethnic and Political Conflict WriteNet is a Subsidiary of Practical Management (UK) E-mail: [email protected] THIS PAPER WAS PREPARED MAINLY ON THE BASIS OF PUBLICLY AVAILABLE INFORMATION, ANALYSIS AND COMMENT. ALL SOURCES ARE CITED. THE PAPER IS NOT, AND DOES NOT PURPORT TO BE, EITHER EXHAUSTIVE WITH REGARD TO CONDITIONS IN THE COUNTRY SURVEYED, OR CONCLUSIVE AS TO THE MERITS OF ANY PARTICULAR CLAIM TO REFUGEE STATUS OR ASYLUM. THE VIEWS EXPRESSED IN THE PAPER ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR AND ARE NOT NECESSARILY THOSE OF WRITENET OR UNHCR. ISSN 1020-8429 TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................1 1.1. WHAT IS POLITICAL ISLAM? .................................................................................1 2. THE MANY FACES OF POLITICAL ISLAM: CASE STUDIES .................................5 2.1. NORTH AFRICA .................................................................................................5 2.2. EGYPT, IRAN AND TURKEY ..................................................................................8 2.3. ISLAM IN THE GULF: THE GULF COOPERATION COUNCIL (GCC) STATES......................16 2.4. PAKISTAN AND AFGHANISTAN ............................................................................17 3. ISLAMIC THREAT OR CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS ............................................20 3.1. MILITIAS AND EXTREMIST ORGANIZATIONS: RESISTANCE MOVEMENTS OR TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS? ............................................................................................................20 3.2. ISLAMIC RADICALISM: THE IMPORTANCE OF THE SECTARIAN DIMENSION ....................25 3.3. CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS? .................................................................................26 3.4. POLITICAL ISLAM AND THE DEMOCRACY DEBATE...................................................27 4. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE PROSPECTS ..........................................................29 5. BIBLIOGRAPHY..................................................................................................31 United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees CP 2500, CH-1211 Geneva 2, Switzerland E-mail: cdr@unhcr .ch Web Site: http://www.unhcr.org 1. Introduction Political Islam, or more commonly “Islamic fundamentalism”, remains a major presence in government and in oppositional politics from North Africa to Southeast Asia. In recent decades new Islamic republics have emerged in Sudan, Iran and Afghanistan. Islamists have been elected to parliament, served in cabinets and been president, prime minister or deputy prime minister in countries as diverse as Sudan, Egypt, Algeria, Jordan, Lebanon, Kuwait, Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Malaysia, and Indonesia. At the same time opposition movements and radical extremist organizations have sought to destabilize Muslim countries and attacked government officials and institutions in Muslim countries and in the West. Americans have witnessed attacks against American embassies and personnel from Tanzania and Kenya to Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Pakistan. International terrorist attacks have been accompanied by domestic acts of terrorism such as the bombing of New York’s World Trade Center. In recent years, Osama bin Laden has become a symbol of the export of international terrorism with America often identified as a favourite target. Political Islam in power and in politics has raised many issues and questions: “Should the West fear a transnational Islamic threat or clash of civilizations?”, “Are Islam and democracy incompatible?”, “What are the implications of an Islamic government for pluralism, minority and women’s rights”, “How representative are Islamists”, and “Are there Islamic moderates?” Understanding the nature of political Islam today, and in particular the issues and questions that have emerged from the experience of the recent past, remains critical for governments, policymakers, and students of international politics alike. 1.1. What is Political Islam? The causes of the Islamic resurgence are many: socio-political, religio-cultural and economic.1 However, common causes and concerns are identifiable: the failure of secular nationalism (liberal nationalism, Arab nationalism and socialism) to provide a strong sense of national identity to gain independence from foreign influence, and to produce strong and prosperous societies. Governments (most of which are non- elected, authoritarian, and “security states”, that is, dependent upon security forces) have failed to establish or strengthen their political legitimacy. They have been criticized for a failure to achieve economic self-sufficiency or prosperity, to stem the growing gap between rich and poor, to halt widespread corruption, liberate Palestine, resist Western political and cultural hegemony. Both the political and religious establishments have been criticized: the former as a minority of western, secular elites more concerned with power and privilege than faith and social justice; the latter as a religious leadership co-opted by governments who support or control mosques and religious universities and institutions. 1 For studies of the Islamic resurgence, see Haddad, Y.Y., Voll, J.O. and Esposito, J.L. (eds.), The Contemporary Islamic Revival: A Critical Survey and Bibliography, New York: Greenwood Press, 1991; Haddad, Y.Y. and Esposito, J.L. (eds.) Contemporary Islamic Revival Since 1988: A Critical Survey and Bibliography, Westport CT: Greenwood Press, 1997; Esposito, J.L., The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality?, 3 ed., New York: Oxford University Press, 1999; Esposito, J.L., Islam and Politics, 4 ed., Syracuse NY: Syracuse University Press, 1998; Piscatori, J.P. and Eickelman, D.F., Muslim Politics, Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997; and Ayubi, N., Political Islam: Religion and Politics in the Arab World, London: Routledge, 1991 2 In the Arab world the disastrous defeat of Arab forces by Israel in the 1967 war discredited Arab nationalism and triggered a soul-searching that questioned dependence on the West and the appropriateness and viability of western models of development. In South Asia, the 1971 Pakistan-Bangladesh civil war undermined any notion of Islam and Muslim nationalism as the glue that could hold together the ethnically and linguistically diverse Muslim population. Lebanon’s civil war, Iran’s revolution of 1978-1979 signaled similar catalytic events or conditions, the failures of Middle East economies in the 1980s triggered “bread riots”, elections and the emergence of an Islamic electoral alternative in Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, and Algeria. Afghanistan’s mujahideen became the effective alternative to the state in responding to the Soviet occupation. The rise of the Taliban and their restoration of law and order were initially welcomed by many as an antidote to the years of inter-mujahideen rivalry and devastation that followed the withdrawal of the Soviets. Although Iran offered the most visible and sustained critique of the West, embodying both moderate and more extremist/rejectionist anti-Westernism, the failures of the West (both its models of development and its role as an ally), and fear of the threat of westernization, its cultural penetration, have been pervasive themes of the resurgence. Many blame the ills of their societies on the excessive influence of and dependence (political, economic, military, and socio-cultural) upon the West, in particular the superpowers America and the former Soviet Union. Modernization, as a process of progressive westernization and secularization and increasingly globalization, have been regarded as forms of neocolonialism exported by the West and imposed by local elites, a disease that undermines religious and cultural identity and values, replacing them with imported foreign values and models of development. While the primary concerns of Islamic movements are domestic or national, international issues and actors have also played important roles in Muslim politics. Among the more important have been: the Arab-Israeli conflict and the liberation of Jerusalem; the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan; and the “liberation” of Bosnia, Kashmir, and Chechnya. Countries like Saudi Arabia, Iran and Libya have sought to extend their influence internationally, supporting government Islamization programs as well as Islamist movements. 1.1.1. Islamic Movements: Leadership and Ideology Islamic revivalism is in many ways the successor of failed nationalist programs from the Arab nationalism and socialism of North Africa and the Middle East to the Muslim nationalism of post-independence Pakistan. The founders of many Islamic movements were formerly participants in nationalist movements, ranging from the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood’s founder, Hasan al-Banna, to Tunisia’s Rashid Ghannoushi of the Renaissance Party, Algeria’s Abbasi Madani of the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS - Front Islamique du Salut), and Turkey’s Dr Ecmettin Erbakan, founder of the Welfare (Refah) Party. Islamic movements have claimed
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